Ravens and Writing Desks
by skaia7
Summary: Hatter learns about love just when he needs it the most. Alice/Hatter, H/C. Fever. Sickness. Partly inspired by Adam Lambert's "Whatya Want from Me?" WARNING - I know how to use apostrophes, etc. Format screwed up, especially Pt 3. :/ Trying to fix.
1. Chapter 1

Part 1

_"Finally." _

That one word - breathed in her ear as his strong arms held her tight - said so much. Not just that he'd missed her, which he confessed out loud moments later, but how he'd ached to hold someone like this. To have them hold him.

Wonderland had been... anything but wonderful. For a long time. Hatter's own parents had been part of the Resistance, so he'd grown up surrounded by people who would one day shape the future: Dodo being the most prominent. Part of Dodo's disgust for the young man came from his knowing Hatter's parents, and what they would have thought of what Hatter had done to survive.

Hatter had told Alice a little of this, lying together in the dark. She'd propped her head on her hand with elbow sunk into the pillow, watching his face as he stared at the ceiling, wide eyes soul-dark and curiously flat. Detached. He was still charming and charismatic during the day, enjoyed watching her teach classes at the dojo and exploring things like pizza and movies and the subway station, but without the benefit of being peaceful or happy. Emotions like that were denied the denizens of his world.

He could feel certain emotions when he touched her: when he fed off of hers or when some physical sensation stimulated them. Not pain or fear... those he could feel without help. Even relief, which was the primary sensation at their reunion. But joy? peace?...

Love?

After all, there was a reason the Queen of Hearts had built an empire trafficking these stolen emotions to the people of his world.

But things were changing. He was changing. Being in her world was slowly allowing emotions - _his own _emotions - to bubble and bloom inside. Barely a month since she'd run across her living room and practically leapt into his arms, he'd begun to feel more than he'd ever felt before. Maybe too much.

And though Alice didn't delude herself into thinking she was his first relationship, Hatter's powerful reactions to each new threshold of feeling thrilled her. Every time her arms closed around him she felt how he stopped himself from shuddering by holding himself stiff, every effort bent on stemming the tide. How he always leaned a little into her and couldn't quite swallow the near-silent _relieved_ breath that escaped his lips. When they kissed he was sometimes hungry, barely restrained. Other times he was achingly slow, savoring each gentle brush of their lips.

The first time they'd made love, he shook so hard she thought he'd break apart.

It was exhausting, all these emotions and feelings running through him day after day, a sudden downpour after a lifetime of drought. It was bound to take its toll.

At first it was a sluggishness, a pervading weariness he couldn't shake for a day or so. Then it was a thirst she brought glass after glass of water to quench. Always with him blushing lightly and cracking a joke, trying not to seem too needy. Or too grateful.

Then...

"Hh... ke'i_IITschh_!"

"Bless you," she handed him a tissue.

"Why do you say that?" he asked, rubbing his nose with a bent knuckle as he took the white paper and crushed it with his fingers. He'd woken this morning with a tickle he couldn't seem to get rid of, a nagging drag in his throat. And that one little sneeze had brought only momentary relief.

"Um... it's just what you say."

"But why?" he pressed, blinking and knuckling his nose a little more roughly, trying both _to_ and _not_ _to_ sneeze again so soon.

"Well, there's some story about it coming from the Middle Ages, during the plagues. About how they believed your soul tried to leave when you sneezed and by saying 'Bless you' it would protect it from being taken over by evil spirits."

"Ah."

She went back to the kitchen to make some hot tea. As soon as her back was turned he hunched a little deeper into his leather jacket, a chill having settled in his bones that wouldn't be ignored, but he refused to let her see him shiver.

"_heh!!_... -_k**NXT**_!-h. Ow!"

"Don't do that," she called from the stove. "You'll give yourself a sinus infection."

Hatter grunted, feeling the pressure slowly ease away from his ears. He didn't know what a 'sinus infection' was, but it didn't sound like a good thing, so he made a note not to try to pinch off the sneezes anymore, even as he felt the next one teasing him...

"Hh- ik'_TSCHhh_!"

"Bless you," she reappeared, carrying the steaming mug. "Or would you rather I didn't say that?"

"Makes no difference," he shrugged casually, sucking a subconscious sniff and closing chilled fingers around the hot ceramic.

But it was a lie. When she said it something warm settled in his chest, something very like the feeling he got when she smiled at him, when he held her hand, when they kissed.

He liked it.

And that, really, was the root of the problem when you got right down to it. He liked all of this way too much. Even 'like' wasn't the right word, but he couldn't bring himself to even think the other. He'd had too many likable things yanked from his clutching hands in his miserable life to even allow himself to hope this would last. Was simply soaking up as much of this as he could so the memories might sustain him long enough when it, too, was inevitably gone.

Or more specifically, when she left him.

After all, how could she not? This was Alice. THE Alice of Legend. Who brought the House of Cards down not once, but twice. She may not believe she had done it 150 years ago, but he did. Some past life, a prior incarnation of her had done it first, and then returned to deliver his people again. She was a heroine in every fiber of her being. A savior down to her bones. Courageous, intelligent, compassionate, lovely. And he was...

She caught him frowning. "Is it too strong?"

The tea. Right.

"Ah, no, sorry. Just..." He quickly slipped a reassuring smirk onto his face, glancing up at her with the customary mischievous glint in his brown eyes. "Wonderin' about m'shop, 's all. Figure Ratty might've decided to take it over. Turn it into a restaurant or somethin'. Glad I don' have to eat whatever he might drag in and cook." He forced a nonchalant chuckle, setting the mug down and leaning his head back against the couch cushions. A dull throb was setting up behind his eyes, and he wondered if the caffeine in the tea would stave off the threatening headache.

"We could go back and find out," Alice murmured, slipping a warm arm behind his neck and tipping her head to lean against his. The scent of her surrounded him, like fresh spring grass and clean, wet dew.

_"_hepp_'Tschh!" _

He managed to turn away at the last moment, aiming for the crook of his arm. And scowled when the glimmer of wet drops from the spray caught the light, bright clear beads against the tan leather.

"Bless you," she murmured near his ear.

There it was again. Hatter's eyes slipped closed before he could stop himself, tucking the warm feeling away into his memories. For later.

But the tickle flared up again. "hh- '_gtsch_! nkg_TSCHh! _He curled forward over his lap for these, pulling away from her and pressing his wrist to his nose in a vain attempt to squash them down. All it did was make the second sneeze scrape his throat harsher, echo louder through the room even as it caused the throb to become a pound. He flopped back with a weary sigh, but that turned into a light cough as the drag caught in his throat.

"Uh oh."

He shifted his eyes to look at her sideways. "What?"

"Sounds like you're getting sick." Her brows were drawn together, lips turning in a slight frown.

Dread carved a hollow pit in his stomach. "No I'm not." He swallowed. Sick was bad. Sick in Wonderland was always very bad.

"You sure?" her eyes narrowed, slim hand gliding to sweep his bangs up and rest lightly on his brow. "Mm. You don't feel warm."

"See?" he forced a wide grin, hoping she didn't catch the desperation in it. "Right as rain. Just somethin' in th' air, probably." He ducked his head and touched her lips with his, whispering, "I feel fine," in between kisses designed for distraction.

It worked. Her lips parted over his and her tongue swept his bottom lip. As usual, he had to steel himself against the onslaught of emotion: rushing warmth, staggering desire, deep gratitude tinged with unworthiness. But this time it was all the sharper, a razor edge of fear running underneath.

His lips fluttered down her neck to her collar bone, drawing breathy sighs and slight shivers from her warm throat. He struggled not to shiver himself, though not solely from desire. That damned chill was back, and the drag in his throat was edging into an urge to cough.

Later that night, after he'd made love to her and stubbornly spent a good four hours holding back a dozen sneezes and covered the clearing of his thick throat with loud noises - water in the sink or the flushing of the toilet - he lay next to her in her bed watching her sleep. He'd done this every night: pretended to drift off until her breathing became slow and deep, then turned to stare at her in the dark. She was so beautiful it made his chest ache. Her pale shoulders glowed in the thin moonlight, the smooth skin offsetting the long, dark hair that rippled down her back.

"Hh-_MPxh!_" he pinched the sneeze, clamping every muscle in his body so he didn't shake the bed and wake her. It sent a stab of pain through his already-aching head, but he only gripped harder, viciously denying himself breath to make the second sneeze as quiet as possible. _ "Mph!"_ Dragging his heavy limbs out of the soft sheets, away from her blissful warmth, was hard. But he'd be damned if he was going to wake her.

Pulling the bedroom door gently shut behind him, he padded silently into the living room. She'd shown him how to work the T.V., and he'd figured out how to use the closed captioning one afternoon when she fell asleep on him, head pillowed on his shoulder for a two-hour nap. Plucking a tissue from the box, he cupped it in his hand for another tight sneeze, "gk'_NGSCHu!_" Dammit. He wasn't going to fall sick on her. He wasn't.

Or worse, let her know it.

He curled into the couch cushions, pulling the crocheted afghan around his shoulders with a shiver he didn't have to hide. His head was still pounding, his throat coated with something vile he couldn't seem to cough up.

He sat for a few hours, sniffling, coughing and sneezing while he watched the T.V. on mute. He went through several glasses of water, the cold numbing his throat even though it did little to slake his thirst. Finally around 4 a.m. he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore and thought it would be safe to go back to bed. If he was too tired to sneeze he wouldn't wake Alice, and she wouldn't suspect a thing. So he gathered up all the used tissues, burying them in the kitchen trash under other debris, putting his dirty glass in the dishwasher.

Hatter crept into the dark bedroom, Alice's slow breathing a sweet lullaby that calmed his own. He slipped under the sheets, curling against her warm back and stubbornly suppressing another shiver. Closing his hot, aching eyes, he allowed his tired body to sink into the mattress, and he slept.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

Alice woke about 6, having made an early appointment with the dentist that would allow her to make her 9:30 class at the dojo. Hatter lay on his stomach, blankets bunched up around his shoulders. He usually woke when she did, but after the horizontal acrobatics they'd engaged in the night before, she wasn't surprised he slept through her alarm. There were bruise-like shadows under his eyes, highlighting his exhaustion. She pressed a light kiss into his hair and was surprised but amused when he merely shifted and grunted softly before settling back down to sleep.

"See you later," she whispered with a tender smile, then snuck out of the apartment.

A couple of hours later, Hatter blinked his eyes, feeling first the still-pounding headache followed closely by a burning ache in his limbs. The shiver that went through him, head to toe, confirmed what he already suspected. A fever. The thickness in his throat had sprouted into a fiery sting, and that damned tickle was causing his sinuses to flood.

"Ah-_PTSCHh!_ Heh-_EHktschu_! Ngh..." he groaned, pressing his face down and coughing raggedly into the pillow. This was bad. This was very, _very_ bad.

Dragging himself upright, he staggered into the kitchen for a glass of ice water, shivering hard when it sluiced down his hot throat and chilled his tight chest. Putting the kettle on for tea, he briefly contemplated making something for breakfast. But he wasn't hungry.

"Hhk'_SCHghh_! hak'G_SChu_! ehh?... hh-_HH!_-- Uhnn." he groaned, pressing a cold palm hard against his temple that throbbed with the beat of his heart. His nostrils still twitched, a third sneeze lingering maddeningly just out of reach. "Bloody hell." He knuckled the offending organ brutally, eyes watering a little as the itch slowly teased and tormented him to agitated distraction. "-iihhh!! Hk-_KKhtsch! ....hkNGKtshh-uu! _.

He shivered again, tucking his hands under his arms as he began to do several chores around the apartment that Alice had mentioned she planned to do this weekend. He liked taking care of her when he could, liked feeling like he was contributing something to this relationship. He didn't have a job yet - wasn't sure what he would be good for in this new world of hers. But he could keep the apartment clean and run errands, fix the lock on the bathroom door and hang several pictures she'd leaned against a wall.

When she came home tonight that "to do" list would be done, even if he had to battle his body every step of the way.

Which was looking more and more likely as he stopped in the middle of making their bed to bend over and cough up half a lung. A strange, long-buried part of him ached for Alice to come home, to feel her cool fingers on his fevered skin, to have her ease him down into their warm bed and hear her soft voice lulling him to sleep. But a bigger part of him was terrified.

_She can't know._

So when she shoved the sticky front door open several hours later, she found him standing next to the dining room table with a wide, welcoming smile, no visible sign of his day-long battle with whatever this was. He had always believed that to name something gave it power. So he wouldn't. Everything was done and he had dinner ready and waiting.

"Hey there," he purred, folding his arms around her and pressing a kiss to that spot just below her ear that made her breath catch. "How was your day?"

She began to chatter about her beginner class, about one lady in particular who made distracting grunts when doing the forms. He pulled her chair out, settling her down and moving to take the seat opposite. She complimented his pasta - one of the few things he'd learned to cook in this alien kitchen - and let him refill her wine glass more than once.

"So I was thinking tomorrow maybe I'd take you to the science museum."

"Okay," he forced an eager grin. "What's there?"

"They've got this touring exhibit from the Natural History museum in D.C. The evolution of man."

"Evolution. Is that, like, wheels n' things?"

She cocked her head at him. "No, not _rev_olution. _Ev_olution. You've never heard of Darwin?"

He shook his head and half-listened to her explanation, adding the appropriate responses when she paused for breath. He thought he was doing well: pushing through the chills and aches to seem as normal as possible. He'd let his own pasta boil a little longer than hers so the noodles were overly soft and slipped easily down his sore throat. He'd poured a glass of wine for himself, but sipped it sparingly and gulped his ice water when she looked down to twirl another noodle around her fork.

"Museum it is, then. Is it an all day affair?" he asked as he took the dishes to the sink. "No classes tomorrow?"

"I've got one class at 10. But we can go after lunch."

He made tea and left her on the couch with a movie while he made the excuse of going to put some laundry away, stalking quickly into the bedroom at the far end of the apartment and closing the door.

"N'_Nggsch!_" he smothered a sneeze in a crumpled tissue from his pocket, trying to swallow as much of the sound as he could. It hurt. "Hh'**_nx_**_gsh!_" But he did it again, ducking into the bathroom and turning the water on full throttle so he could cough into a towel. It rattled his chest with a slight burn, his gut clenching with dread. Flicking off the tap, he gathered all the towels and tossed them in the basket.

"I'm gonna go downstairs and do another load," he said as he crossed the living room, the basket tucked under one arm. "Be back when it's done."

"You don't have to do that..." she started to get up.

He set the basket on the couch and gently pushed her down. "I know." He cupped her neck and pressed his lips to hers, giving his signature Hatter grin: boyishly mischievous with a glint of the devil in his eye. "I want to."

She smiled, both indulgent and chagrined. He winked and plucked the basket up, pulling the front door firmly closed behind him.

Once in the hall, he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes with a low groan. The shivers were back with a vengeance, and he wasn't sure he could have held them back much longer. His fingers seemed almost numb as they gripped the plastic rim of the basket, and his arms felt like lead. But he pushed his body upright, shuffling slowly down the stairs to the basement. No one else was there at this time of night, so he was able to start the wash and then bend over the humming machine to rest his pounding head on his folded arms. God, what he wouldn't give to lay down.

But being half-horizontal caused the fluid in his head to shift, and a twinge in his left sinus burgeoned into a wet sneeze. Hh-eeh! _..._ hiih! _k'ESSchh! _Uuhn." His groan was muffled by the rush of the washer beginning its first cycle, and the vibration of the machine shook loose another sneeze. "Hhk'_SCHghh_!" He sniffled hard, feeling the slippery sluice of hot congestion, and stood up before it could escape. Closing his eyes against the sudden dizziness, he pressed a hand to his burning chest as he coughed.

There wasn't anywhere to sit, so he leaned against the cold concrete wall to wait for the wash to finish, arms crossed and teeth clenched against the near-constant chills. When he was finally able to put the load in the dryer, he sat on top of it to soak up the warmth. "Ngt'_sshu_! Hh... _igscht!_" He was sneezing more than he ever had in his life, and when he wasn't sneezing he was coughing or swallowing gingerly down his raw, hot throat. "hehk_igtschu! _Ughh."

Whatever this was, it had come on quickly. And gotten worse in a matter of hours.

What if he was contagious?

A wave of fear shivered through him harder than any chill. _Alice._

But what could he do? Other than keep away from her, which she would notice and question. Unless he figured out a way to make her _want_ to keep away from him...

Of course.

Frowning, he swiped a knuckle under his nostrils with another liquid sniff. He didn't like it. It would probably kill him to do it. But if it was a choice between that and Alice falling ill? He'd take the pain any day.

Resolve gave him new strength, so he tossed the warm towels in the basket and carted them quickly back up the stairs. Alice was just where he'd left her, curled on the couch with the movie near its end and the empty mug of tea on the coffee table. He strode to the bedroom, setting the basket down and stalking back towards the front door to snatch up his hat.

"Goin' for a walk."

"Okay," she reached for the remote, as he knew she would. "Let me get my shoes."

"No," he tossed back, just a little forceful. "Stay. I'll be back later."

"It'll just take me a minute..." She already had one on.

"For God's sake, Alice!" he barked, pain spearing his chest at her wide-eyed expression. But he schooled his features and forced out the rest. "I haven't had two minutes to myself for the last bloody month! I'm just goin' for a walk and I'll be back later." Jerking the door open, he added not-so-under-his-breath the final touch, "Knew this wouldn't work..."

He didn't dare look back. Knew one glance of her blue eyes brimming with pain would bring him to his knees, have him grasping for her hands and begging her to forgive him. He was gone before she had a chance to start arguing. God, but Alice loved to argue. He was counting on her to be stunned long enough to make his escape.

He hated himself for doing it. Alice had deep trust issues where men were concerned, having believed her father walked out on her and her mother when she was ten. Even though she discovered her father had actually been abducted and taken to Wonderland, his memory of her locked away, she would still be deeply hurt by Hatter's words.

But it was better this way. She would be in bed by the time he got back and hopefully tomorrow he'd wake and be over this feverish coughing-sneezing-achy thing. And if he wasn't he knew he could stretch out this 'needing space' act a few more days until he was. Provided the illness didn't prove fatal.

Somehow he didn't think it would. In Wonderland if you fell sick with something deadly it got you within a day. When he'd woken this morning still able to get out of bed he'd instinctively stopped fearing the worst, determined to simply outlast it.

He didn't allow himself to even contemplate that he'd pushed her too far, that she'd turn tail and run before he could really hurt her. She had a history of that. He knew she'd leave him eventually, and if 'eventually' turned out to be 'now,' he'd find a way to live with that.

Even though it would shatter him into a thousand jagged pieces.

Stepping out the door to the apartment building, a gust of icy wind raked its claws through him, making him shiver convulsively. Glancing up, he noted the dark sky threatened rain, a right good storm if he didn't miss his guess, and didn't that just figure?

Tucking his hands into his pockets, he ducked his head and stubbornly headed towards the park. _HkNgtshh! _He smothered the wet sneeze into his shoulder, loathe to take his hands from the slight warmth they were generating inside the leather. But the sharp tickle only got worse... hnngk_TSHh! _hh'_kgtschu!" _His nose was running, and he was forced to take the last crumpled tissue from his pocket before the inevitable. "Heh-**EKGNTschh!** Uggh. Bloody hell..." He cursed as he blew thickly and wiped at his upper lip. He'd have to try not to sneeze again, unless he could come up with more tissues. As full as his his head felt, another sneeze would be an embarrassing mess.

_I can hold back 'till I get home..._

Home. Alice. He swallowed hard against a suddenly tight throat, blinking his stinging eyes.

Coughing raggedly, he jogged across the street and into the park, intent on finding a bench where he could wait out the next couple of hours...

--

Alice simply stared at the door for a few seconds, unable to breathe or blink as his words echoed in her head. Anger and pain waged a war in her chest, grief at his muttered words squeezing her heart in its vise. '_Knew it wouldn't work...' _

_What did that mean??_

As usual, her first response was to charge after him and demand an explanation. But by the time she got her stunned legs under her and yanked the door open, he was gone. She sprinted to the window just in time to see him jog into the park, knowing he'd be impossible to track by the time she got there.

She half-growled, half-screamed in frustration, clenching her fists and shaking with fury as she kicked at a basket of magazines. Sure, Hatter had always been difficult. They'd argued and fought their way across half of Wonderland, even while being chased by suits and hunted by the Jabberwock. But he'd never been deliberately cruel. His suddenly distant behavior made no sense.

_Unless he's really feeling smothered,_ she crossed her arms and paced restlessly, chewing her lip. She searched her mind for any sign over the last week that this had been brewing. Nothing. She couldn't remember a single look on his face or a single thing he'd said or done to hint that he wanted some space.

She continued to brood over it as she folded and put the towels away, as she checked her email and spent some time reading news stories on MSN. She barely remembered showering, still examining every day they'd spent together since he'd left Wonderland.

_This isn't like him,_ she found herself thinking over and over again. But then hard on the heels of that thought came the cynical _And how long have you known him? A month? Just over? How would you know what he's really like? _

But somehow she knew. This _wasn't_ like him. Hatter was many things, but cold and reserved wasn't one of them. That was part of why she'd chosen him over Jack in the first place. With Hatter, what you see is what you get. He'd never lied to her before.

She stopped cold. That was it. His outburst at the door had rung curiously false. Empty of truth, pure shock value. And she couldn't fathom the reason for it. She would bet money there was something going on.

She lay in their bed for an hour in the dark, awake and tense. When she heard the bedroom door ease open and felt him cautiously slip in next to her, she breathed a sigh of relief. At least he came home. At least he didn't sleep out on the couch. She could smell the cold rain on him, and a little worried that he'd been out in it. But she was sure whatever was going on with him wasn't really about her, and they could talk through it in the morning.

He didn't speak, so she pretended to be asleep, giving him the space he'd asked for. After a while, she gave what she hoped was a sleepy-sounding sigh and rolled over, pressing close to him. True to form, he gave a small involuntary shudder at the contact, and she smiled. Slipping an arm around his waist, she breathed in his warm scent and drifted off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

At first Alice wasnt sure what woke her. She was usually a pretty sound sleeper, but somehow her eyes opened and she found herself staring at the ceiling.

Then, she felt it: the slight shifting of the mattress.

Hatter.

He was curled on his side, making small movements in his sleep - tiny jerks as if each muscle was quivering on its own - and muttering under his breath so soft and light that she couldnt make anything out. His face was as pale as the sheets, hair darkened by sweat. Her mind was still sluggish, so she blinked at him for several moments before she quite figured out what was going on.

A nightmare.

But just as she thought to wake him, his breath quickened dramatically. He took in two great gasps before his eyes flew open, body springing upright so fast that if shed blinked she would have missed it.

He dragged in air, shoulders heaving, turning his head to first one side and then the other, as if confused and uncertain. She could almost hear his heart pounding, echoing in the silent dark. A glance at the clock burned the red numbers _5:09_ into her retinas, and she sat up slowly, not wishing to startle him further.

Hatter?

She reached out to touch his arm, but he seemed to sense it coming and his whole body tensed. _Dont,_ he barked, a low sound that bit the air with its anger. He turned his head away, struggling to bring his breathing under control, swallowing hard.

Alice pulled back her hand as if hed slapped her, anger flaring to life. _What the hell?..._

"I'm fine," he insisted, low and hard even though the words were was painfully hoarse. "Go back to sleep."

Despite her screaming intuition, she was one heartbeat away getting up to go sleep on the couch. If he was going to be like this - especially after last night - she would leave him to stew in his own sweaty, nightmare-induced juices, thank you very much. But then, his breath hitched.

For one agonizing second, she thought he was about to cry. Instead, he sneezed.

_Hhh?...NNKGiissshh! _It was desperate but exhausted, drawn out and weakly anxious. He brought his knees up, resting his forearms on them as his head dipped in another breathless _Heh-Ekkgntshuh__!_ before sniffling pathetically, a thick, moist sound. _Heeh__... **NKG**'tschhu!_

He'd sneezed a few times yesterday, but they'd been lighter and softer. Manageable. Nothing like these heavy, congested things that echoed thickly in the deepening dark. _He must be coming down with something._

She slid forward noiselessly, laying the previously rejected hand gently on his back, clearly feeling the heart that hammered furiously against his ribs, the sweaty heat soaking his shirt.

"Hey... you okay?"

He took a deep breath to answer, but it only fueled a rough _hgk'**NGCHtsshh**_**_! _**that was practically wrenched from him, followed by a weak groan, so soft she probably wouldnt have heard it if she hadnt felt it under her hand.

When his breath hitched again she reached for the tissue box on the nightstand, snatching a few in her fist before snaking around his waist to hold them where she hoped he could see them. His head was still turned away so she couldnt tell if his eyes were open.

He must have seen because he took them, pressing the white paper hard against his face for a haggard **_hhTS_**_ssscchhh__! _that shuddered through him with powerful intensity, seeming to take monumental effort.

He drew in a breath and blew hard, deep and viscous, finally ending the fit. His attempt to sigh turned out more of a croak, laying what looked to be an aching head on his arms and giving several deep coughs that rumbled ominously in his chest, vibrating against her hand where it rested on his hot back. He didnt seem to have the strength to shrug off her touch. Or he didn't want to.

Forget 'coming down with.' He was full-blown sick.

_If he feels as awful as he sounds... _It didn't explain his strange outburst earlier, but it made it easier to forgive him. She felt a shudder go through him despite the intense heat stinging her palm. _He's burning up. _

She found herself slipping softly from the bed before she realized where she was headed. Padding down the hall into the kitchen, she filled a glass to the top with ice water and ducked into the bathroom for the bottle of Motrin.

Stealing back into the bedroom, she sighed to see him sitting just where she'd left him, dark head pillowed on his arms. She sat beside him gingerly, trying not to jostle the bed and spill the glass, and pressed two pills into his hand.

"Its medicine," she explained when he glanced at her with wary hesitation. "For aches and fever."

He took another moment before nodding slightly and tossing them back. His throat worked, draining the glass in seconds before lowering his head again with a wheezing sigh, eyes still closed. The moonlight cut deep shadows under his eyes, making him look completely and utterly exhausted. Alice bit her lower lip, reaching out to take the glass from him with one hand while laying the other against his hot cheek.

He leaned into her touch, and her heart clenched.

"More water?"

He shook his head no slightly, sniffling again, congestion thick.

She knew they didn't have any cold medicine in the house; she rarely got sick and the last time had been before she'd moved to this apartment. She'd thrown out all the old medicine in the move. When he ducked his chin to his chest and coughed again, rumbling and rattling loudly in his lungs, she winced. Making a note to get something first thing in the morning, she set the empty glass on the nightstand and shifted her body to pull him back down to the bed. He sniffled again, breath catching high in his throat, and she snatched a tissue from the box and pressed it into his hand.

_-hh**MPTKgg**sht!_ From the sound of it, she'd been just in time.

He sighed for what had to be the hundredth time, clumsily swiping the tissue under his nose with a vague sniffle before stealing an arm around her waist and burrowing his face into her neck. It startled her for a moment.

She'd never seen Hatter this... vulnerable. In need. He'd always fought against any display of weakness. Even when he had been interrogated at the casino, cut and bruised, he'd insisted it was nothing. Or when he was overcome with new and unfamiliar emotions here in her world he always stubbornly controlled the way he reacted, covering it with a joke or a wry comment if he thought she noticed.

But the way he curled against her now, accepting - no, _seeking_ comfort, was so touching she almost couldnt stand it.

He shuddered and she brushed a quick kiss against the top of his head.

"Shh, it's okay. I'm here."

He settled, growing heavy as he slipped into sleep, the breath from his parted lips hot against her neck. Alice lightly stroked his back with the hand attached to the arm she had around him, wondering absently whether he would tell her about his nightmare in the morning

She shivered.

Anything bad enough to shake the cocky, self-assured Hatter... she wasnt sure she really wanted to know.

--

It had been some time since Hatter had experienced this particular nightmare, but given the intensity of the waves of sickness that roiled through his body he shouldn't have been too surprised it had chosen now to make its reappearance.

He sat on the bed, gasping through the vise constricting his chest and trying desperately to get his heart to stop racing. Another drop of sweat trickled down the center of his back, and it was all he could do not to give in to the terror coursing through his limbs. Alice _would_ choose this particular moment to wake up; he could feel her sitting up behind him, reaching for him...

_"Don't."_

The instant he snapped at her he cursed himself for it, but he couldnt help it. She shouldn't touch him. He was going to get up. Needed to get away from her as soon as he could. It would be pretty obvious to her that he was god-awful sick. The chill air hit his sweat-slick skin, making him unbearably hot and bone-jarringly cold both at the same time.

_God... Alice. What have I done?..._

He shouldn't have come back last night, should have found somewhere to hole up until he got well or died, whichever came first. But as he'd sat in the park in the freezing rain, shivering and shaking so hard his teeth rattled in his skull and bones ached from the strain of holding himself upright, eventually his head had gone thick and fuzzy. At some point he'd stopped being able to think rationally, had become some primal creature that simply staggered back to the apartment, desperate for warmth, for safety.

He couldn't expose her to this, would _never_ forgive himself if her lovely body burned with this fever, if it trembled with these chills. If she had to feel any pain.

And God, did he hurt. His head throbbed mercilessly, so clogged with congestion he could barely breathe, couldn't think clearly to save his life. Each swallow sent razors and broken glass down his swollen throat, and his burning chest seemed to get tighter with each ragged breath. He was already so dizzy and nauseous that he knew when he tried to get up he'd be sick.

"I'm fine," he insisted, wincing when he heard how hoarse he sounded. "Go back to sleep."

He'd never heard of anything like this in Wonderland. The most common illnesses were the also - unfortunately - devastating. Raw literally froze you where you stood waiting for someone to come thaw you out, and the longer you waited the less likely you would survive the waiting. The deadly Crush brought with it intense, wracking and unforgettable pain. Both diseases meant you had about a day to live.

Whatever _this_ was, it was slow and insidious, seeming to worsen by miserable increments until he was reduced to this feverish, trembling wreck. The symptoms were not only debilitating, but embarrassing as well.

Case in point. He was concentrating on gathering enough strength to get up, to put distance between her and his infected self, when he began to sneeze. And sneeze. And _sneeze. _Each one speared through his head like a pike.

As soon as her hand came to rest on his back, he knew it was over. Alice was like a dog with a bone when it came to helping someone in need: relentless and unswerving. She wasn't going to let him leave; he'd have better luck convincing Dodo and the Queen to sit down to a friendly tea.

"Hey... you okay?"

No. _Bloody hell._ He felt awful. But he'd be damned if he was going to admit it. He opened his mouth to try to reassure her... and sneezed again.

Alice took control, thank God. Tissues appeared at just the right moment, cold water slid down like blessed rain quenching the fierce agony in his raw throat, and then the pills she said would ease the fever's heat and help with the pounding that threatened to split his skull, not to mention the searing ache in his joints. He could have wept with relief.

Her cool hand came to rest on his cheek, and he leaned into her touch before he could stop himself. It was a simple touch, but one that contained so much comfort and caring and compassion... It had been so long since someone had touched him like that. Gently. Without thought. It warmed him all the way to his jaded, skittish soul.

And then his heart dropped to his toes. It suddenly occurred to his feverish brain that they'd slept next to each other the past two nights, that he'd prepared her food and no doubt touched a myriad of surfaces around the apartment. Even if he managed to drag himself from the bed, it was too late.

She was already exposed.

He ducked his head as his chest spasmed, wet coughs torn from him, each one cutting through his lungs like a heated knife. But the pain of his failure cut far deeper.

When she gently pulled him down to the bed with her, he was simply too exhausted to fight, or to stop the sneeze that slipped out. Again she came to his rescue, laying a much-needed tissue in his hands just in time to keep him from making an even bigger fool of himself. Her skin was so_ warm,_ her body so soft and inviting that his chest ached to feel it. That long-buried part of him lapped up the comfort: her cool fingers on his fevered skin, her soft voice lulling him to sleep just as he'd wished the day before. Her arms pulled him close, and in them he found he could let go of his fears, his facade of strength. It was just so _right._

It was _home._

_Will she ask about the dream? _he wondered vaguely as his fevered mind drifted in gray mists. And if she did, what would he say? _Does she really want to know that I still dream about it after all these years?... that I cant seem to stop hearing the screams and seeing the blood_

He shuddered. More than anything else, Hatter despised pity. Didnt think he could bear to see it shining in her clear, azure eyes.

"Shh, it's okay. I'm here," she whispered, as if reading his scattered thoughts, her gentle hand full of reassurance and strength as she stroked his back.

He sank down with a sigh, her words making him feel better than all the medicine in the world. God forgive him, he loved being in her arms...

Oh. God.

_He loved **her.** _

The thought struck him so hard it made tears well up in his closed eyes and his heart stop dead in his chest. Wouldn't that just be his luck, he thought with a terrifying wave of grief. To realize he was in love with her just when he got so disgustingly sick. His stomach dropped to his toes.

'Eventually' was here. Staring him in the face. When the sun rose, he'd have to find some way to go on with his miserable life.

The only thing was, he wasn't sure he could.

_Ah, Hatter, why even try to fight it? _He couldn't stop the one tear that slid silently down his cheek._ You are so pathetically done for._


	4. Chapter 4

_Warning: I mention someone "being sick." Yes, like that. So... you're warned. _

_Please review! We likesss reviews: they arrre taaastyyy!... lol_

**Part 4**

His head was turning in fretful tics on the pillow, low insensible muttering interrupted by harsh pants. Alice squeezed as much water from the washrag as she could, gently pressing it to his hot skin to skim the sweat away.

"Shh. I'm here. Try to sleep." But he didn't.

Instead he grunted softly, one glazed eye opening just a sliver to glance at her before sliding wearily shut. Alice frowned. He kept doing that, as if checking to see if she was still there.

In the last hour his fever had risen another degree, and he was increasingly agitated and uncomfortable. She'd called the Walk-In Clinic to see if they were overrun, and they said things were usually busy until around 2, after lunch and just before schools got out. She could bring him in then. For now she just had to wait.

It wasn't easy.

She'd hated leaving him this morning, even just for the 20 minutes or so it had taken to run to the drug store on the next block. But the arsenal of cold/flu medicine and supplies she'd acquired assuaged her conscience a little. He'd roused enough to swallow everything she'd handed him: cough syrup, more Motrin, orange juice, ice water. But he'd stubbornly shaken his head when she pressed him to eat some soup, curling up and coughing thickly.

She'd cancelled her 10 am class at the dojo, focused on keeping him as comfortable as she could while still wracking her brain as to how he could have gotten so sick so fast. Her grandmother's voice chimed in her head blaming the walk in the rain, while her scientific father's gruff bass muttered about a virginal immune system previously unexposed to this world's germs and therefore without protection.

"h'k...**_g'dz_**_chtt!"_

"Bless you."

His hand snaked out from the blankets, fumbling for the tissues.

"Here."

He closed hot fingers around the paper, jerking them to his face for another congested, "_eh'**kdnxggss**c'hh."_

"Bless you."

"Ugk. Jusd kgill be dow," he croaked. The suffocating congestion had plummetted Hatter's normally bright tenor fathoms deep.

"You're okay," Alice breathed, combing his sweaty hair back with her fingers. "It's just a bad flu."

A really bad flu. She looked at him as he sweated and shivered, her brows knit with worry. He relaxed just a little at her touch, a low sigh escaping his pale lips.

2:00 couldn't come fast enough.

--

"David Hatter?"

They both sat in the hard plastic chairs, the fluorescent lighting glaringly bright. Alice's hand rested between his shoulder blades, his back curved as his head lay on his crossed wrists, arms across his knees. Getting him out of bed, dressed, and downstairs into the cab had taken over an hour. Between waiting for him to catch his breath after booming coughs and wrenching sneezes, pausing when he got dizzy and had to lay down, and once when he jerked out of her grasp and stumbled into the bathroom, falling hard to his knees to be sick.

He lifted his pale face at the nurse's summons, and Alice wrapped her arm around his back, her other hand under his elbow to help him stand. He was trying not to lean on her, but couldn't seem to walk a straight line to save his life.

"Gowns are right there," the nurse said, tucking the clipboard into the box on the door to the exam room. "Get undressed. The doctor will be here in a few minutes."

Hatter's heavy-lidded gaze flicked to Alice after the door closed. "Ud-dressed?" he whispered, congested.

"Um, yeah," she reached for one of the thin gowns. "They're going to listen to your heart and breathing, put this cuff thing around your arm, take your blood pressure... Lots of stuff. Probably look in your ears and your throat..." When his hands curled and fisted his shirt protectively she flashed him a wry smirk, reaching to draw them gently away. "Come on, tough guy." Her fingers were steadier than his as she made short work of the buttons. "It won't be so bad. They're here to help. And I'll bet that by this time tomorrow you're feeling a lot better."

He wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Hey," she called softly, tilting her head until she moved into his line of vision. His bloodshot brown eyes were anxious, wary. "Heyy," she crooned, reaching up to cup his fevered cheek. "It's okay. I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you."

His eyes dropped to the floor, brows drawing together.

She slipped her arms around his neck and drew him in for a brief hug, then pulled back and swept his hair off his hot forehead with a soft smile. "We've been through worse than this." One side of his mouth curved up slightly. "So come on - drop trou, big boy."

By the time the nurse knocked on the door, Hatter sat on the paper-clad gurney, both gowns tied front and back, hands tucked under his arms and ankles crossed against his chill. Alice sat in the nearby chair, listening as Hatter mumbled one-word answers to the preliminary 'hello' and 'think we have the flu?' greetings. His dark eyes darted around, watching every move the nurse made.

"Mm, temp is 103.2," the nurse murmured as she made a note. "How long has it been this high?"

"It was 102.7 this morning," Alice replied, noting how Hatter's eyes closed and he seemed to be directing all his energy into remaining upright.

"Okay, the doctor will be right in."

They were left alone for only a few minutes, but Alice took advantage of the privacy to get up and stand in front of him, gently urging him to lean forward until the crown of his bent head pressed against her breastbone. She wrapped her arms around him, briskly rubbing his back to generate warmth. The small shudder that went through him both pleased and worried her.

The doctor was a tall, slender Indian woman, with square, wire-framed glasses perched on her nose. Alice stepped back as she came in, taking her seat so the woman could get to her patient.

"Good afternoon. Mr. Hatter? How are we feeling today?"

"Aw_h_... awful," he choked, ducking his head into his elbow for a wrenching sneeze, "_hh--Nx**dkSSH**iu!"_ after which he didn't bother opening his eyes.

"Goodness, bless you," the doctor replied, setting a box of tissues beside him on the papered surface of the bed. "It sounds like it. Any history of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, or cancer?"

Hatter was silent.

"Um... I don't think so?" Alice answered for him, watching his lashes flutter, that sliver of brown flicking to her again. Checking. He shook his head slightly, and she amended, "No."

"Any drug allergies?"

Hatter's shoulder moved slightly. A shrug. Half a shrug.

"We-... We don't know. He hasn't been to a doctor since, um... since he was young." Alice was making this up as she went along. How do you tell a doctor that the patient wasn't a regular human like all the other sick people in the stark waiting room, but instead a visitor from a world tucked just on the other side of a magical looking glass?

"Okay," the doctor flicked the light on the otoscope, pushing his brown hair away and peering into his ear. "Mmm. Lots of fluid." She gripped her stethoscope and swung it over her head, putting the earpieces in and pressing the flat disc to his back. "Breathe deep for me."

He tried. But before he could get a full breath he choked on it, and curled forward with harsh, rattling coughs. The doctor spun around and plucked several tissues from the box, pressing them into his hands. "Cough into the tissues, please." Hatter's face flushed, both with embarrassment and lack of air.

"S-sorry," he gasped when he could, still hunched over, one hand pressed against his chest.

"It's all right," she responded, moving her expert hands to his jaw. "Relax." She gently probed under his ears, his jaw, and down his neck, then murmured, "Pardon me," when she lifted his arms and pressed into the gland underneath. Her dark, slender thumbs settled just under his eyes, pressing gently. "Does that hurt?" He nodded, wincing. "Okay, all done."

Alice looked at her expectantly.

"Well, it's not the flu," the doctor reached for a pen from her breast pocket, clicking it sharply. She made a few notes on the chart, then reached into her white coat for a small paper pad. "Congratulations, Mr. Hatter, you have a bouncing upper respiratory infection with a healthy dose of bronchitis. Probably started in your sinuses and migrated to your chest. I'm giving you a prescription for some cough syrup with codeine: it's going to help you sleep, and rest is paramount to recovery. Also an inhaled steroid to help with that wheeze. I recommend sleeping propped up on a couple of pillows and invest in a good humidifier. Just make sure to clean it regularly so it doesn't grow mold. For the respiratory infection, lots of fluids, vitamin C, acetaminophen or ibuprofen for the fever. I wouldn't buy any cold medicine: it shouldn't be combined with the cough syrup and inhaler. And..." she ripped two sheets from her prescription tablet. "... you should be right as rain in 5 to 7 days."

Alice reached and took the paper slips. "Thank you, doctor."

"Feel better," the doctor squeezed Hatter's hunched shoulder briefly, then departed.

Alice glanced at Hatter and caught him frozen in classic pre-sneeze expectation: eyes at half-mast, low lip quivering, pale hands cupped a few inches in front of his face. "Hh-uhh... _ehh-hh!_ Hiih_-iih_--**_IH!..._**" But it backed off, leaving him panting weakly, watery-eyed and flushed. He curled one hand into a fist and rubbed his nose petulantly.

She pursed her lips and flashed him a sympathetic grimace, handing him a couple of tissues. "Maybe we should ask what you can take for the sneezing," Alice murmured gently as Hatter's breath once again hitched uselessly.

"Doh," he wheezed when his breath settled, the tissues fluttering to rest in his lap. "Feels good to... _sdff_... fidally let it out." He rolled his eyes and swiped roughly at his nose. "Whe_hh_... whed I cad... ehh**_bb'zSHtt!_** ug. hah-- _pGSHtt!_ hek'**_GdzSCHtu!_**" He sighed, relieved, and blew thickly, brows drawn with the effort.

"Bless you."

"Nn."

--

She left him half-dozing in the car while she filled his prescriptions, his sweaty head tucked against the cool passenger side glass creating a foggy halo around the dark brown curls. He looked so tired it made her own eyes ache, but he wouldn't simply let himself pass out. Kept jerking up every few minutes, that sliver of brown glancing over at her before the red-rimmed lid would sink back down with a small, chuffing sigh.

What, did he think she was going to disappear in a poof of smoke?

"'Be back in a few minutes," she whispered, making a note to ask him about this strange behavior when he felt better.

When the car door closed, Hatter let himself cough until the weight in his chest eased, swallowing fire. He was still puzzling over the oysters' - _humans'_ - unfamiliar medical practices. Little slips of paper, thin gowns for which he saw no point, really, and strange touches to his face and neck that weren't exactly pleasant. Another chill skittered through him, and he hugged his his crossed arms tighter to his wheezing chest.

Alice was getting him medicine, his muddled brain processed sluggishly. Then home to bed. But even as exhaustion dragged at him, he couldn't let himself fall asleep. Gray wisps of memory rose behind his eyes. _A stained mattress... burning heat followed by icy shivers... waking up to ominous silence and the coppery tang of blood..._

The door opened again, bringing a quick blast of cooler air that fanned a flaming itch in his tender sinuses. "_Heh!..._ hk'**_gtd_**_sch!_ hh!... hap-**b_yrscht!_**" he sneezed raggedly, pressing his wrist against the still-flaring, tickly nostrils that threatened to drip. "_eyh_... **_X'zzschtt!" _**

"Bless," Alice offered, pulling a new box of tissues from the shopping bags and tearing off the protective plastic. "Here."

"Thags," he huffed, pulling a couple free another sneeze catapulted his nose into the lotion-suffused paper. "_Hegk'**szdNXtsch**hu!_"

Driving home was a blur, and by the time he staggered to the bedroom his vision was flickering like a silent movie. He barely felt her hand as it rested briefly to his forehead, overwhelmed by the blissfully soft mattress and soothingly cool pillowcase when he collapsed with a muffled groan.

"Here," she murmured, and he heard a rustling of paper. "Don't fall asleep yet. I need to get some of this medicine into you..."

A shock went through him. _ Can't fall asleep. _

He dragged himself mostly upright, leaning against the headboard and panting hard. He struggled to open his lead-lined eyelids, searching until he found her. She stood leaning on the dresser, scowling at the instructions.

A length of hair rested over one shoulder, a chocolate waterfall, the ends brushing the top of her breast. The late afternoon sun caught the glints of red, giving her a warm halo that made his heart beat faster. Her pink lower lip was caught by her white teeth as she gnawed the tender flesh and drummed her nails against the scuffed wood in frustration.

God she was beautiful.

He closed his eyes and swallowed against the sudden tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his illness. The sudden whiff of ash and blood nearly had him hyperventilating in panic.

"Hatter?"

He forced his eyes open. She was looking at him strangely, questioning.

"I'b fide," he gasped, sniffling back a hot, slurpy load of congestion.

"Ha ha. Nice try, tough guy," she shot back, one corner of her lips curving sardonically.

She stalked forward, the cough syrup in one hand and the thing called an 'inhaler' in the other. It took nearly 20 minutes to choke down each, and by the end he was convinced that oyst... _human_ medicine was primitive and preposterous.

"Okay. I'm going to heat up some soup. And you _will _eat it," she finished, tossing the medicine on the nightstand and straightening with a willful roll of her slim shoulders.

He let his lips curve up into a lazy grin, pursing them tight as his lungs convulsed with a few weak coughs. Most men would have been infuriated with such a strong-willed mate, would have strained - even subconsciously - to subdue her, to master her spirit. Not Hatter. He loved how strong she was. How stubborn and self-sufficient.

Sure, there'd been a couple of times during their adventure in Wonderland that he'd wanted to strangle her for her blind pig-headedness, for her incessant need to question him at every turn. But now that her life was no longer in danger, he admired the intelligence that sparkled in her bright blue eyes.

He closed his eyes, listening to her distantly bang pots and pans in the kitchen, the faint murmur of her cursing making him lean his head back with a deep chuckle. As relieved as Hatter was that he was not deathly ill - as much as he felt like it - he couldn't let himself relax completely.

He floated for a while, welcoming the warmth of the blankets even as he fought the pull of sleep.

A rasp in the direction of the door had him dragging open his eyes, blinking at the sight of Alice with her tongue caught between her teeth, a tray balanced in both hands.

"Soup's on," she whispered distractedly, managing to make it to the bed without spilling a drop.

"Thags," he rumbled, turning to one side to cough even as she brushed his hair back to test his temperature.

"You feel a little cooler," she lied.

The soup felt good on his raw throat, the hot tea sweet and soothing. The medicine had opened his chest, helping him breathe easier and lulling him into a sweet, hazy dream. His head fell back, lips parting as Alice moved to straddle him, her long hair curtaining their faces.

"How do you feel?" she asked in a husky murmur.

"Mm, better," he grunted, the brush of her hips sending a bolt of electricity stuttering through his overheated body. Her lips fluttered from his collarbone to his jaw, nipping gently just under his ear. He groaned, rocking his hips up into the warm cradle of her legs. Her hands pressed down, massaging from pecs to waist, eliciting a low groan of desire. "More."

She panted against his mouth, her tongue laving his lower lip in long, languid strokes. His shaky fingers closed around her waist, digging into her soft flesh and squeezing until she moaned.

"No," he heard her breathe. "You- you need to rest..."

"Fuck... that..." he gasped, lowering his head to bury his face in the juncture between her shoulders and neck, lips suckling her delicate skin. "Need... you."

"Oh, Hatter..."

What followed was an acrobatic feat that not only cleared his clogged passages, but caused heat to flare in every cell of his exhausted frame. They collapsed against the mattress, limbs entwined and taking strength from each other's warm embrace.

"I... love you..." he thought he whispered.

But when she didn't respond, he groaned and sank dejectedly into a welcome unconsciousness, not sure the whole thing had even happened at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

She shouldn't have taken advantage of him.

He'd been feverish and shivery, a combination that seemed to ignite every protective instinct she possessed. And the sight of him slumped against the headboard when she'd brought the tray of soup had flicked some kind of sexual switch in her, something his pinkened nostrils and wheezy chest had only made more insistent.

She'd wanted him. Badly.

His lips were hot, long fingers digging insistently into her waist and low moans of pleasure egging her on, throwing gasoline on the flame. Obviously he didn't object to her attentions, sucking on her neck with an insistence that belied his temperature.

In fact, his huskily murmured, "_More,_" had nearly driven her insane. And when she'd tried to disengage - to protest that he needed rest - his growling, "_Fuck that. Need. You,_" had sent a ricochet of desire thundering through her thighs that no amount of logic could quell.

When it was over, his heart-felt admission had caused her to nearly bite her lower lip in half. _"I... love you..."_

Alice had heard him. More clearly than she'd wanted to.

It wasn't that she didn't love him. He had no idea how badly she wanted to reply, _"I love you, too..." _But her throat had closed up, ice flooding her veins. There would be no going back once she admitted how she felt. No way to reclaim her feelings, to erase the significance of those words from his mind. It wasn't like murmuring the phrase to the mirror, watching her own lips forming the forbidden shape of those words in the dark. No. This would be irreversible.

Thankfully he sank down to sleep, his fevered body so sapped he couldn't fight it anymore. He'd been keeping himself awake for hours for some reason, some ridiculous thought-process that only Hatter would invent or understand. Alice had a feeling that even if she asked him to explain it to her it wouldn't make sense.

Ravens and writing desks.

She pulled an extra quilt from the closet and cautiously covered him, not daring to brush the errant lock of hair out of his closed eyes for fear he'd wake. He was flat on his back, his head turned so his chin was tucked down by his shoulder. His kiss-flushed lips were parted to breathe, a slight wheeze accompanying each airy exhale. Part of her wished she had gotten more water or juice into him before he'd crashed, wished she could sneak another pillow under him so he could breathe better, but another part was just content that he was resting. After a few minutes, a light rattle rumbled from the back of his throat. A delicate snore. It was vulnerable. And adorable.

She shook herself sternly and tip-toed to the living room, turning the T.V. on mute and dividing her attention between it and his raspy breathing. Eventually her ear lost focus on the bedroom, and the volume slowly crept up on the screen until she was lounging with one leg sprawled across the coffee table and muttering insults at the television host, a strangely enthralled disgust keeping her entranced.

It wasn't until two wrenching sneezes echoed from the hallway that she sat up with a start and scrambled to mute the television once more.

Hh-iiih....! Uhh... _egk'Huhh....**Nnh'EKTSSCH**hu! _Hheeh . . .! Nnk-_Hg'EH'**SSSHMF!**_" sleep-tousled hair, vividly chapped nose, and bruised shadows under his half-lidded eyes.

He didn't see her: he was still sneezing.

iih... **hh-h**_ ehk**ZztngSHuu!**_ His face snapped down into the wad of tissues he clutched in desperate fingers, shoulders shaking. He groaned thickly, voice husky and deep. He reared his head back and gasped again, eyes sliding closed. His fiery nose looked angry and sensitive, all red and quivering. "... **_ahh-kNGzt'SCH!_**" His lean body convulsed yet again. It ended the fit, his shoulders sagging with a ragged sigh as he spent the last useful portion of tissues on a thick, congested blow. And there at the very end, a soft, miserable moan.

When it was done he sagged against the wall, one hand fisting the used tissues and the other pressed to his heaving chest. Frighteningly pale. Like he was on the verge of collapse.

"Hatter!" she scrambled up to go to him, to catch him before he went down in a crumpled heap. But he jerked up with a start, somehow managing to take a stumbling step back, shying away from her approach with hands scrambling to find purchase on the wall behind him. It made her stop dead in her tracks. "...Hatter?"

He stared at her as if she'd disappear. Blinked like she was a ghost his fevered imagination had conjured up. Those brown eyes were stretched too wide and too bright to be lucid, rolling a little like a panicked steed. "Y-you were gone," his bloodless lips moved in a cracked whisper. "I thought..."

She heard the rest in her mind as clear as if he'd spoken out loud. _I thought you'd left me._

"I'm right here," she whispered gently.

His face suddenly went from sickly pale to deathly gray, and Alice watched him slide down the wall, hitting his knees hard. In two steps she reached to pull him to her, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing his face to her chest. His arms crept up to crush her in a frantically tight yet unbearably gentle embrace.

"Shh. I'm here," she bent her head and pressed her lips to his sweaty hair. "I'm right here."

_"Alice... God..." _And the dam broke.

He sobbed so hard he choked, one not even ending before the next was pushing its way out. They tumbled forth like rocks in a landslide, shaking them both in an earthquake of sorrow, of relief, that was years in the making. Hatter couldn't seem to stop. Each time he struggled to push the images back down where they'd been buried, another would leap to the fore in a suffocating wave of emotion.

A nine year old boy knelt in Alice's arms, reliving the day he'd seen his parents killed.

He'd been sick then, too. The old safe house had been compromised. It was the middle of the night, and freezing, when the three of them had been forced to sneak silently through the streets. Hatter's mother had wrapped him in both his and his father's coats, trying to keep the chill from his fevered body. They'd managed to get a doctor to him - a highly risky, not to mention expensive, endeavor - but the visit had been interrupted when Dodo burst through the door telling them they had to pack, had to leave now. The doctor had shoved a potion into his mother's hand, the only thing that would save her son's life from the vicious Raw that made him cough until he couldn't breathe while his bones and skin began to stiffen and grow cold. Without the potion to thaw him out he would eventually freeze solid, lungs seizing up tight, and he'd die of suffocation.

They were being chased by suits despite Dodo's attempt to draw the henchmen away in another direction. The new safe house was in sight, but if the suits saw them go there it would be useless. They had to hide. A narrow alley appeared, so dark it almost seemed like a crack in the wall, and his father pushed them all in with shaking hands. There had been a foul smell, so much trash piled up forgotten and rotting. And an old mattress. He and his mother had tripped and fallen onto it, chests heaving as they tried to catch their breaths and be quiet enough that the suits would pass them by.

But Hatter couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't quiet his cough.

Even kneeling in the hall, pressed so close to Alice's warmth and softness, he turned his head to bark roughly, feeling the squeezing vice burning his chest as he coughed and sobbed. The suits had found them, shooting his father in the head and his mother in the chest. She'd thrown herself over Hatter and so they must not have seen him, or thought the bullet would go through her to him, too, because there was _so much blood._ But it hadn't.

When the suits were gone, his mother had still been fighting for her final breaths, turning and forcing Hatter to swallow the life-giving potion with shaking, bloody hands. Then, she was gone. He'd lain on that blood-soaked mattress all night, feeling the last of her body heat finally slip away as the sun rose, the potion breaking his fever and melting his frozen limbs. But it was too late.

He'd killed his parents.

New tears kept coming in waves of sorrow, despair, and finally relief. Alice's arms around him were the only thing keeping him from shattering. And that promise, of peace, of safety - something he had thought was lost forever -_ that_ he was crying for that the hardest of all.

Finally he lay limp, Alice holding him up as his frantic sobs gave way to exhausted tears that seep from beneath swollen lids. She pulled his head back and wiped his tear-stained face. Coaxing him gently back to bed, she pressed a cool washcloth to his hot, swollen eyes, all the while murmuring soft, nonsensical reassurances.

She didn't think Hatter knew that he'd relived his memories out loud, gasping out the whole horrifying truth between wrenching coughs and wracking sobs.

No wonder he'd been so cagey and skittish the last couple of days; no wonder he was so sure she'd leave him if he were sick. Being sick in Wonderland made you vulnerable, a liability that could get you and those around you killed. She imagined that every time he'd been sick in the twenty or so odd years since that day he'd holed up alone, unwilling to risk anyone else, unable to bear any more sorrow, any more guilt.

"Here," she pressed a glass of ice water to his lips, thankful when he sucked it down in greedy pulls. He was thirsty enough that she easily got him to swallow more medicine followed by a glass of juice. She put a few ice cubes in a bowl of water by the bed before slipping in beside him, rewetting the washcloth and wiping the last of the sweat and tears from Hatter's face and neck.

Two brown slits opened, his weary gaze seeking her out. Checking.

"I'm here."

They closed. His chest rose and fell a few times, clenched with a couple of wheezy coughs. A hand fumbled blindly for the tissues. "uhh. ihk**_iZTSSH!!_**_uu.._."

"Here," she pressed one into his hand.

"ihk_gyei**GYEITSSSCH!!**_uh He brushed the crumpled tissue under his nose, brow furrowing as if still irritated.

"Bless you."

Then, two brown slits.

"Still here," she smiled and cupped his cooling cheek, feeling how he settled his face lightly into her hand. She could see he craved this touch - was half-starved for affection - but also held himself tense, as if unable to allow himself to fully relax. As if he still wasn't sure he deserved it.

"I love you," she swallowed, surprised at how easy it had been. "I'm not going anywhere."

He breathed deep, eyes squeezing closed as he buried his face in the dark hollow of her neck.

_"I love you, too."_


	6. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

The fever had broken. Like the storm in his soul, the fire in his body had finally spent itself and he slept deep and peaceful. Alice blinked at him, the mid-morning light picking up the red glints in his dark brown hair. His dark lashes were fanned out high on his flushed cheek, his breathing slow and deep. Healing.

As if those three words were all the medicine he'd needed in the first place.

Not that it was going to be so easy. Or so immediate. Alice was aware now that there was so much she didn't know about Hatter, about his family and his life before leaving Wonderland. And it was time to hear his stories, to heal old wounds and find forgiveness. For the both of them.

She watched him for nearly half an hour, her gaze soft.

Finally, he began to breathe lighter, a touch quicker, and his brown eyes fluttered blearily open. She smiled at him, instinctively reaching out a hand to his cheek. _Nice and cool. _ His eyes sank closed briefly at her touch, then opened again when she shifted and got up.

Hatter watched her dress, drawing the brush through the dark waterfall of her hair with languid, practiced strokes. The morning light hit her from behind, giving her body an ethereal halo. He sighed; he could look at her forever.

A trickle in his head made him reach for a tissue, wincing a little when the paper came in contact with his chapped nose. All in all, he felt worlds better today than he had last night. His head didn't pound, his limbs were stiff but no longer aching, and he could breathe without his chest wheezing and chuffing like a walrus in heat. But he was exhausted. And his nose was twice as active. Tickly. Sneezy.

"-iihhh!! Hk-_KKhtsch! ....hkNGKtshh-uu! _

"Bless you."

"Thags," he murmured, noting that his voice was still deep and rough. He reached for another tissue and blew, taking more than one try to get rid of what had accumulated while he slept. He finished with a harsh cough, wincing when it dragged just a little in his chest. Still, this was an improvement. He was getting better.

"Medicine," she announced, forcing him to swallow down and breathe in each unfamiliar item, one after the other.

"I'll be glad when this is done," he murmured, rubbing his eyes and cracking a yawn.

She glanced at him, then turned away to pull her hair up and tie it back. He frowned. Her eyes were shadowed with a sorrow that hadn't been there the day before. A knowledge that she bore like a weight.

"What?" he asked as he sat up.

"What, what?"

"What is it?" he pressed, swiping the tissue at his fluttering nostrils without thought has he stared at her, intent. "What is that in yo--... hahh! --hp'_IHHdshh__!_ Ugh, bloody hell..." he tossed the tissue down with a frustrated grunt before piercing her with a hard stare. "You're looking at me like you've been told I'm dying, love. And, surprisingly, I don't feel like it right now. So unless you know something I don't about '_sinus infections_'..."

"No." She looked at him backwards in the mirror. "You're not dying."

"Then...?" _Why was she looking at him like that... _A creeping dread gnawed at his gut. Last night was mostly a haze, but he had random flashes of the nightmare with the alley and the suits... only this time it was Alice's face he saw instead of his mother's, her hands dark with blood. Her arms around him as he sobbed. But he couldn't have. She was standing there looking at him. Still here. So she couldn't possibly know "Did I--..." he swallowed. "Did I... say anything last night? Anything strange?" _Please say no._

She didn't answer, confused. _He didn't remember?..._

"What?" he stood, coughing roughly but recovering quickly. "What did I say?"

She thought about lying. Alice was a terrible liar.

"It was about Wonderland," she hedged. "When... when you were young."

Hatter blinked. His gaze abruptly shuttered, but not before she saw a glint of memory flicker in its depths. "I was sick," he muttered. "Fever and all that. Strange dreams." He stopped to clear his throat, looking away and running his fingers through his hair. "Fever dreams don't mean anything." Then, he crossed to the bathroom and shut the door. She heard a pair of harsh, wet sneezes echo from inside, followed by a low curse.

Alice took a deep breath, steeling herself to go do the hard thing. He deserved to know that she knew. That what he'd said was not just a dream, and that it did mean something. It was important, what had happened to him. And what's more, he needed to know she loved him. To hear her say it in the light of day without a fever to cloud his understanding of it.

The shower came on. Her lip caught between her teeth, and she pushed the door open.

He was a fuzzy outline behind the translucent shower curtain, silent and unmoving as Alice quietly shed her clothes and stepped in behind him. His back was to her, face down, both hands splayed against the wall as the water pounded his shoulders. She slipped her arms around his waist, laying her head between his shoulder blades.

He tensed.

Gently, she told him what he'd said. About his parents. How they were killed. How he'd broken down in her arms. As the words tumbled forth, she felt him turn to stone beneath her. Heard his breath catch and then grow still.

"And more than anything else... I love you," she finished quietly.

Only the sound of water pounding the tile broke the thick silence.

Hatter couldn't breathe. _How... she... but I... _He struggled not to start shaking as fear coursed through him in waves. How could she know and_ not turn away?_

And that's what this was really about, wasn't it? That he didn't feel he deserved her love. That he didn't deserve care. He was afraid to love - to _be_ loved - and at the same time terrified not to. To be alone. Loving meant opening yourself up to pain. To loss. But the feeling of her soft cheek pressed against his back, her slim arms around him, her words hanging in the air between them... was _so good_ he ached down to his very soul. He needed this. He _wanted_ it. And - just maybe - someday he would deserve it. Deserve _her._ One corner of his mouth curved up ever so slightly, and he closed his eyes.

If she let him, he would spend the rest of his life trying.

After another long moment, his hand covered hers where it rested against his stomach. It was enough. She closed her eyes and gave him a gentle squeeze before slowly reaching for the soap. The moment was precarious, fragile, and she was afraid to say or do the wrong thing and pop it like a bubble.

But he turned.

In two heartbeats she was cradled in his arms, one of his strong hands pressed to the small of her back, his breath stirring the fine hairs just behind her ear. His fingers skimmed lower and he dipped down to kiss the crook between her neck and shoulder. Her lips curved in a slow, bedroom smile.

_"Alice..."_ His touch was gentle and insistent, his voice all whiskey and dark smoke.

_"Hatter."_ She rolled her hips against him and was ridiculously pleased when a fine tremor shivered his lean frame. It was a while before they left the shower, their lovemaking in the new peace of this morning as gentle and slow as it had been furious and passionate in the maelstrom of the previous night. That had been about despair and need. This was about peace. And love.

_Love._

They each murmured it to the other about a dozen times, their every touch - every breath - cracking the vise around their hearts open just a little wider. Easing the fear just a little more. But even when they finally emerged, fingers wrinkled from prolonged exposure, they stayed close. Found excuses to touch each other as they dressed and ate. To steal kisses and caresses as they settled on the couch with a movie and hot tea.

"Hhk'_SCHghh!" _

"Bless you."

"Hk'**_tsch!_** ehh?... hh-_HH!_--"

"Bless you, again."

"-**HAK'GZT_SChu_!"**

"Bless--"

"Will you stop saying that?"

A brief pause. The whisper of a tissue drawn from the box.

"Hh! ik'_TSCHhh_! -ke'i**_IIZTsjch_****! **Bloody hell..."

"I love you."

A sniffle; a soft sigh. "I love you, too."

_~Fin_

_Authors Note:_

_Thanks to all of you who read and posted reviews! Honestly, if you hadnt I probably wouldnt have finished this. If you like any of my stories, please do review. Often it helps keep me motivated, and sometimes even inspires a new story!... Again, thank you so much! __J_


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